The Streak Continues
Well, better late than never, here are some thoughts from the Pitt game:
I’m getting kinda tired of hammering at the “this was an encouraging loss” point. If you really want to revisit that argument, feel free to read this, replacing every mention of “Syracuse” with “Pitt”. It’s not that I’m not encouraged by what I saw Tuesday night, because I certainly am. But there’s just so many different iterations of “they showed a lot of fight”, “they didn’t roll over and quit like Friars squads of old”, and “chalk this one up to inexperience, not lack of talent or effort” that I can write before I start sounding like an automated cliche machine.
You know, like Merril Hoge.
The fact is, sooner or later, losses like this will no longer be considered encouraging. I don’t think we’re there yet, but we might be getting close, with the Big East losing streak standing at 14 games and our hopes of competing in the Big East this season quickly fading. This is particularly true if the same end of the game mistakes keep cropping up. As a great man once said, “at the end of the game, that’s supastar time, baby!” This time around, it was particularly disappointing to see a wild contested 3 early in the shot clock with the Friars only down 2, even though it’s not the first time we’ve seen it. For the first 38 minutes of this game, the Friars steered clear of their old strategy of hawking up bad threes like Jeff Xavier on acid. They worked the ball inside to Kadeem Batts (9 pts, 6 boards, 5 offensive), and Bilal Dixon (5 pts, 5 rebs), who did a very nice job against one of the toughest frontcourts in the country on both ends of the ball. They also slashed to the hoop for easier buckets and to draw fouls, getting most of the Pitt starting lineup in foul trouble early. I’ve been saying for the whole season that with talented slashers like Vincent Council, Marshon Brooks, and Gerard Coleman, this should be a no brainer game strategy, and it looks like the team finally figured that out. All of that is what made it so frustrating when the Friars began to rely on the three ball down the stretch. Yes, they hit 2 in a row. I had no problem with the 2 they made, because they were carefully selected, open looks. I did have a problem with the 3rd attempt, which missed badly (I’m not 100% sure, but I believe it was Coleman who took it too, and I am not a fan of him ever taking threes). It just seemed that the third three was rushed, and taken on the premise that the last two threes had gone in. This has been somewhat of a problem over the last few years, as evidenced by the fact that my father, who did not watch most of the game, actually said “you know they’re gonna go to the well one too many times” seconds before Coleman whiffed. Hopefully, this kind of poor decision making down the stretch won’t stick. I don’t think it will, because Coleman, and this team as a whole, is too talented. For now, though, it’s a problem Keno Davis is going to have to find a way to deal with.
Now that the negativity is out of the way for this blog, I’d like to point out the defensive effort by the Friars in this game. Pitt is a very good team, and Jamie Dixon is a very good coach that always has a disciplined roster. The Friars were able to force TWENTY TWO turnovers in this game, which is a huge part of why this game was as close as it was. The perimeter defense was shaky at times, particularly in the first half, but the transition defense was nothing short of stellar. Duke Mondy is very quickly turning into a go-to defensive stopper, which makes me forget about his occasional penchant for X-esque threes (seriously, does he have to miss a three within his first minute into the game to keep his scholarship or something?). The box score has him listed for 4 steals, but it sure seemed like more than that. VC quietly added 6 steals of his own, which is nothing short of outrageous. I arrived at PC in the fall of 2007, and this was definitely one of the best defensive performances I’ve ever seen from the Friars. Considering how well the transition offense runs, if the Friars continue this trend, we might be on to something, especially if the end of game situation gets straightened out.
-SM
